History, doctrine, culture, books

Over the holidays I read The Mormon Image in the American Mind: Fifty Years of Public Perception (OUP, 2013), by J. B. Haws, a BYU prof with a history PhD. Technically, the book is a study of how the LDS Church and Mormonism in general is perceived by the American public, and the author presents survey data throughout the book to gauge the ups and downs of the various ways that Mormons and the Church are viewed. No doubt the book is required reading for every LDS Public Affairs employee. But for most readers the book also serves quite nicely as a narrative history of the last fifty years of Mormonism. A lot has happened and a lot has changed: reading about George Romney's 1968 quest for the Republican nomination for President is like reading about another world.

I came across this passage in Joyce Appleby's Inheriting the Revolution (Harvard Univ. Press, 2000) talking about changes in clothing and attitudes about clothing that came to the post-Revolution generation of Americans.

Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians, like the Quakers, announced their new devotion by spurning fancy clothes, lavish entertainment, and slaves, enjoining their members to wear plain clothing and avoid frivolities. They kept a strict watch over each others' behavior. Displaying their religious convictions through their dress, evangelical Christians often provoked reactions from the less religious. (p. 145)

I hope you have seen the recent public announcement of the initiative to use the Gospel Topics section of LDS.org to essentially do what we have been calling "inoculation" for the last ten years (see here for a list of links to Bloggernacle posts on the topic). The three short video interviews of General Authorities listed at the top of the Gospel Topics page (identified with titles like "How will Gospel Topics be enhanced?" rather than identified as GA interviews) give additional details about the initiative. While there is a lot of ground to cover, this is a very promising development. We should nominate whoever championed this initiative for Mormon of the Year.

Yes, he did. But you don't have to take my word for it; go read Bart Ehrman's latest book, Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth (HarperOne, 2012). The title seems intentionally provocative (publishers do like to sell books), but Ehrman makes it clear that there is no question Jesus of Nazareth existed and that the small but vocal group claiming otherwise has little evidence to support their claim.

This is the third of three posts on the atonement (Post 1 | Post 2). What effect, if any, does the atonement have on your day-to-day life? Does it change how you think, how you feel, or how you act? I think most Latter-day Saints would agree that the atonement is not simply about something that will happen at some distant point in the future (Judgment Day) when, thanks to the atonement, one might be pronounced sinless and eligible to enter a resplendently glorious celestial world instead of being cast down to hell, away to outer darkness, or off to a dimly glorious telestial world. But how exactly does the atonement work for us in the here and now? And why do so many Mormons not feel cleansed, redeemed, and confidently hopeful in the here and now thanks to the atonement but rather feel guilty and inadequate? What are we missing?

Last week I posted The Atheological Atonement, noting that the LDS Church affirms the atonement but not any particular theory of the atonement, and suggesting this is actually not a bad "official" position for the Church to take. This post takes a different approach: if the Church were to move towards a publicly stated theory of the atonement, in which direction should it move? I will be relying on Gustaf Aulen's (1879-1977) fine little book Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of Atonement (Macmillan Co., 1966; American edition, 12th printing, trans. by A. G. Hebert; originally published in Swedish in 1930).

Over at Patheos, Joe Spencer posted "Apologetics Again — But This Time with Feeling." Joe argues that Mormonism needs traditional apologetics but that it also needs more than just traditional apologetics. He argues that what Mormonism really needs is something like deep and informed scriptural exegesis that uncovers important doctrinal truths and themes that have not, as yet, been expounded by LDS leaders and intellectuals or at least not properly framed and emphasized. Other denominations would call that activity theology.

I presented a paper on vicarious atonement at the recent SMPT Conference. To prepare the paper, I reviewed the various theories of the atonement offered by Christian theology as well as the LDS view(s) of the atonement. I came to two mildly surprising conclusions.

That's a quotation from Wallace Stegner, found in historian James L. Clayton's 10-page review of Wallace Stegner's writings on Mormons, "From Pioneers to Provincials: Mormonism as seen by Wallace Stegner," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Vol. 1 No. 4 (1966): 105-114. Stegner's family moved from Saskatchewan to Salt Lake City when he was a young boy, and he lived there until graduating with an English degree from the University of Utah. Later, he returned to teach English at the U for three more years in the mid-1930s. The two books in which he discussed Mormonism at length are Mormon Country (1942) and The Gathering of Zion: The Story of the Mormon Trail (1964). Stegner loves the LDS pioneers who crossed the plains, but, Clayton notes, "When Stegner moves away from descriptions or the original pioneers and their hardships ... he becomes much more critical."

Here's the next article from the Dialogue archive, Eugene England's essay "That They Might Not Suffer: The Gift of the Atonement," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Vol. 1 No. 2 (1966): 141-55. After discussing key LDS scriptures that discuss the atonement and reviewing the primary theories of atonement that have emerged within Christian theology over the course of two millennia (the ransom theory, the satisfaction theory, the moral influence theory), England gives his opinion that the LDS concept of atonement is "close to Abelard's [moral influence theory], with the important addition of an understanding of why the atonement is absolutely necessary." This is something of a minority position within LDS thought: most LDS commentators align the LDS view of the atonement nearer the satisfaction theory, a substitutionary theory of the atonement. [There is no "official" LDS endorsement of a detailed theory of the atonement; LDS scriptural discussions permit broad readings.]

I am continuing to read the archive at Dialogue, this week Louis Midgley's article “Religion and Ultimate Concern: An Encounter with Paul Tillich's Theology," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Vol. 1 No. 2 (1966): 63-79. [The table of contents for the issue allows downloads of pdf files for every article.] Midgley applauds Tillich's attempt to highlight the religious dimension of culture and institutions through his concept of "ultimate concern," which Midgley terms a "genuinely useful concept." Properly, God should be our ultimate concern, but too often individuals, as well as institutions and states, are ultimately concerned with other goals (which constitutes a form of idolatry or false religion).

I just renewed my Dialogue subscription and decided I should work a little harder to, you know, actually read it when it comes. Then I got ambitious and decided I should start at the beginning. Below is a quotation from page 77-78 of Mario S. De Pillis, “The Quest for Religious Authority and the Rise of Mormonism," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Vol. 1 No. 1 (1966): 68–88 (bold font and formatting added). The entire issue is available at the Dialogue archive.

With no public announcement or explanation that I am aware of, CES has modified LDS seminary scriptures for all four courses of study. Some old favorites like 1 Nephi 19:23 (liken all scriptures unto us) are gone. New additions include 2 Nephi 25:25 (we talk of Christ, we preach of Christ). I have heard speculation that the changes were intended to give a better match with the topics covered in the new youth curriculum or to give more focus on preparing seminary students for earlier missionary service, but there is no official comment or explanation for the changes. LDS.org now lists the new Book of Mormon scriptures. A nicely formatted table showing changes for all four years is available here.

I recently finished reading Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of Mormonism (OUP, 2011), by Terryl L. Givens and Matthew J. Grow. Most Mormons know Pratt by name from reading the Doctrine and Covenants. A few Mormons have read Pratt's autobiography, which gives some idea of the extent of his missionary travels, but provides little detail about his influential writings or his busy family life (he had 9 wives and 23 children at the time of his death). Any reader of this biography will come to appreciate just how significant a role Pratt played in the early LDS Church, almost from the moment of his conversion in 1830 right up to his death in 1857. Here are a few of the highlights from the book.

It was January 5, 1982, the day United States District Court Judge William R. Overton issued his memorandum opinion in McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education. Plaintiffs challenged an Arkansas statute that required Arkansas public schools to "give balanced treatment to creation-science and evolution-science." The Court found that "creation science has no scientific merit or educational value as science" and that "the only real effect of Act 590 [the Arkansas statute] is the advancement of religion." As such, it violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment and was struck down as unconstitutional. Langdon Gilkey, a theologian who testified at the trial as an expert witness for the plaintiffs, provided an account of the trial in his book Creationism on Trial: Evolution and God at Little Rock (Winston Press, 1985).

Day 2 of the FAIR Conference — I am streaming it here in Wyoming and posting short notes and highlights for most presentations. That's based on a spotty live feed, so I might not get every point exactly right; consult the video for 100% accuracy. Speaker bios are also posted. I will be in and out during the day, so I won't get everything. The regular text is my summary of the speaker's remarks. If I have my own comments to add, I'll put that in italics in a paragraph following the summary. Blair at the Maxwell Institute is also posting detailed notes on today's session.

Liveblogging from a distance — I am streaming it here in Wyoming. The conference runs all day Thursday and Friday in Provo; the conference program is posted at the FAIR site and speaker bios are also posted. Below are the speakers and topics for the Thursday session, along with short notes giving my summaries, or at least highlights, of their remarks. That's based on a spotty live feed, so I might not get every point quite right; consult the video for 100% accuracy. I will be in and out during the day, so I won't get everything. The regular text is my summary of the speaker's remarks. If I have my own comments to add, I'll put that in italics in a paragraph following the summary.

Laurie Goodstein's July 20 New York Times article "Some Mormons Search the Web and Find Doubt" is stirring up a lot of discussion. I will give a couple of paragraphs suggesting this isn't really a Mormon problem but a problem presently facing all denominations, then I will give links to some of the articles and posts that have responded to the NYT article.

The good news: There is more room for dialogue between science and Mormonism than between science and other conservative Christian viewpoints. Most Latter-day Saints don't feel threatened by science. The bad news: Some Latter-day Saints do come to see the relation between science and Mormonism as one of conflict rather than dialogue, and sometimes science wins that debate in their head. Why do some Mormons see science and Mormonism as an either/or choice rather than a helpful partnership?

This is the third post (first, second) in a series on the New Testament. This post covers what should probably have been the first post: consideration of the seven undisputed letters of Paul, chronologically the earliest documents in the New Testament, written in the 50s. They give us the best information we have on the early Christian churches scattered around the Roman world. Oddly, Paul's letters receive much less attention in most LDS discussion of the New Testament than the gospels.

On a recent long drive, I listened to all 12 lectures of a Science and Religion audio book by Professor Lawrence Principe of Johns Hopkins. A topic of personal interest (see my earlier T&S series here, here, here , and here), the science-religion issue should also be more of an interest to LDS scholars and apologists in general, given the role that science, scientism, or a mixture of the two often seems to play in the thinking of young Mormons who choose to exit the Church. My sense is that most people pick up from the media or general education a rather naive view of the relation between religion and science, and that nothing taught in the LDS curriculum does anything to remedy the situation. It is certainly a topic that deserves more attention and better coverage. On this topic, we are failing our youth.

My previous post on the upcoming BYU New Testament Commentary series was so well received I have decided to do some follow-up posts discussing individual books. I'll start with Revelation, partly because that will be the first volume in the BYU series but also because I happen to have a copy of Elaine Pagels' Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, & Politics in the Book of Revelation sitting on my desk for one more week. While a fairly informed reader of the New Testament, I'm no scholar and navigate Greek only with the help of a good interlinear New Testament and various supplements, so my discussion is mainly drawn from the secondary literature and the English text I read in the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), the New International Version (NIV), and of course the trusty King James Version (KJV). But that's enough to author helpful blog posts. Enough throat clearing: So who wrote Revelation, what is it talking about, and why is it included in the New Testament rather than just buried at Nag Hammadi along with other early Christian apocalyptic literature?

A website for the upcoming BYU New Testament Commentary series has popped up. The short announcement on the main page promises "a multi-volume commentary on the New Testament along with a new rendition of the Greek New Testament texts," which will "combine the best of ancient linguistic and historical scholarship with Latter-day Saint doctrinal perspectives." A short post at the Interpreter claims that the first volume, covering Revelation, will be available this summer in e-book format. This promises a dramatic upgrade to the quality of LDS interaction with the New Testament. Here are a few issues (offering both opportunities and challenges) raised by the new series.

Elder Ballard started out his recent Conference talk "This Is My Work and My Glory" with this description and commentary on the wonder of the night sky:

A few weeks ago, on a cold, dark winter’s night, my wife, Barbara, and I looked in awe up at the sky. The millions of stars seemed exceptionally bright and beautiful. I then turned to the Pearl of Great Price and read again with wonder what the Lord God said to Moses: “And worlds without number have I created; and I also created them for mine own purpose; and by the Son I created them, which is mine Only Begotten” (Moses 1:33).

In our day the Hubble deep-space telescope has confirmed the magnitude of what Moses saw. Hubble scientists say the Milky Way galaxy, of which our earth and sun are just a tiny part, is estimated to be only one of over 200 billion similar galaxies. For me it is difficult to comprehend, impossible to fathom, so large and so vast are God’s creations.

Mormon Books 2013-14

Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of MormonismGivens and Grow's warts-and-all biography of this energetic missionary, author, and apostle whose LDS career spanned Joseph Smith's life, the emigration to Utah, and Brigham Young's early leadership of the Church in Utah. My Review